Daily Picture Grade 5 - Day 27-37

Yeah, I know. Late and incomplete. Daily picture ain't what she used to be! There are just too many things going on in the morning. The original intent was to 1) force myself to take a picture each day and 2) provide some way for our family and friends in the US to chart Natalie's growing growing up. Now I am lucky to know in which cabinet I stuffed my camera and Natalie's growth is a tween who doesn't want her picture taken every day! So again, I am adapting. I will publish a group once in awhile. The biggest downside is the lack of time to actually take photographs and work on them. I am now trying to set aside time to actually continue to focus on this hobby. Enjoy!

Day 27
"I am sure all this math homework is done..."

Day 29
Aunt Angel arrived to stay with us for the month of October!

Day 30
Dog + Beanbag = Love

Day 31
Road trip back for the football game. The Prius was pretty crowded back there!

Day 32
Morning with the funny dog

Day 34
Yes, she is reading Carl Haiisen

Day 35
Bed full of sleepy things.

Day 36
Aw, such a cute couple!

Day 37
Yes, we started listening to Christmas carols and this hat on Pandora seemed right!

Daily Picture Grade 5 - Day 17-25

What a busy two weeks! Between work, school, house activities, and football games, I have had not time to keep up with the publishing! BUT I did get the pictures. Well, except for two days. I was going to substitute but then decided it wasn't necessary.

Day 17

"I don't know why I didn't do this math, but it was probably Mom's fault."

Day 18 and 19 WERE MISSED! Though I did take pictures that day. So here are my substitutes!

Day 18 - I shopped for blanket at Kohls for Natalie's bed

Day 19 - Drove my Volt to work for first time!

Day 20

"More math. 5th grade stinks".

Day 21

"Picture day!"

Day 22

"Yet more homework being done in the morning"

Day 23

"Breakfast peek"

Day 24

"Monday"

Day 25

"Finally a happy camper!"

Daily Picture Grade 5 - Day 16

I felt like she could have tried a bit harder to hide herself during hide and seek.

"Come and find me!"

Daily Picture Grade 5 - Day 15

In honor of 9/11, Natalie had to memorize a quote. Here is her somber face to go with the somber day.

"You gain strength, courage, and confidence in the experience where you look fear directly in the eye. You must do what you think you cannot do." ---Eleanor Roosevelt

Daily Picture Grade 5 - Day 14

This is the face of someone who told us she had no homework but did. Oh, and it was 8pm and she had NOT taken taken a bath yet. I may have to ban the ipad completely....

"I forgot and I was busy and I had the other thing to do and I finished the one thing but you told me to do that thing for the one book and I took a shower yesterday and I hardly sweat in P.E. and I can't be responsible as I am only 10 and ..."

Daily Picture Grade 5 - Day 13

Day late, but here nonetheless

"Of course I am ready for school..."

Daily Picture Grade 5 - Day 12

Busy day today. Natalie had intramural activities after school. Then she had an eye doctor appointment. Tom stayed home as we are having a new front door installed. Sold another item on Craigslist and Tom had to broker the transaction. And I went to my third day of work. We got an estimate tonight to get the rest of the house painted. I am loving the pace though. Now I remember why when you work Fridays are such a treat!

" God didn't make the little green apples, and it don't rain in indianapolis in the summer time."

Daily Picture Grade 5 - Day 11

Yes, still getting the daily picture in, though it seems it may be required to publish after I get home. Natalie is doing great in school. Tom still has jet lag and remnants of his illness. I finished two days of work. Natalie doesn't leave for school until 8:15 so we are preparing for the day when both Tom and I have to leave before 8. That means she has to be 100% ready to walk out the door before we leave. That includes wearing her backpack around the house so she won't forget it!

"Dogs, Dogs, Dogs, Dogs, Dogs..."

Daily Picture Grade 5 - Day 10

Today was my first day back to work. I am now working for Sogeti as a consultant. Trading in my cleaning clothes for a suit. A continuing part of the transition back into the US. Too bad we can't get BWI to continue to pay our living expenses! Alas, back to the professional life for me. Leaving behind a life I probably won't ever return to. But "Hello paycheck!"

"Mom can buy me even more shoes now!"

Daily Picture Grade 5 - Day 9

Today she rode to school on her own! I guess we'll know if she made it when she comes home from school.

"See ya later!"

Daily Picture Grade 5 - Day 8

Shoes. The 5-minute warning initiated a flurry of activity in finding shoes to wear. She decided her Converse were stinky and the spray she put it seemed to not do the job. She didn't want to wear her good tennis shoes, so she went upstairs and found the grungiest shoes she owned. I told her that it was not good to wear such bad looking shoes when she had a better option, the good tennis shoes. But she refused! When pressed, she finally said "They pinch!". Goodness. I have been making her wear shoes that pinch in the name of them being the good pair. When do kids learn to just tell their parents that kind of detail? Did she tell me and I ignored it? Hmmm, not the best communication I guess. Anyway, I convinced her that with the spray and clean pair of socks, her Converse would be fine. She was not in agreement, but had no options and not time. We were the last student to cross the street today. Good thing we were on bikes!

"Peddling in my Stinky Shoes"

The remains of the Stinky Shoe Story

Anyway, it's Thursday and Tom is in the air on the way to Chicago. He is bringing his sick body home for repair. He had a nasty case of tonsillitis and now the medicine caused sores inside and outside of his mouth. Safe travels hubby!

Daily Picture Grade 5 - Day 7

Another bike day. She's less cautious, that's good. The bike lock is probably NOT necessary, but it would totally freak her out if she came out and her bike was gone. Leading to yet another reason why I am leaning towards getting her a mobile phone...  I know, all of us grew up without a need for one, right? If our bike was stolen, we went and told someone. And perhaps at this school, someone would actually care. Tom and I will both be at work and I worry about her going to study or work on a project. Anyway, we'll see what happens next week.

"Combo Mambo"

Daily Picture Grade 5 - Day 6

Today we rode bikes to school. Preparing Natalie for next week when she will have to get to school on her own. She doesn't have to be at school until 8:30 and I start week on Tuesday. But we celebrated the fact that our breakfast area is generally devoid of furniture and practiced skateboarding!

"We should get rid of those chairs so I can put in a ramp!"

Daily Picture Grade 5 - Day 5

Second week of school already. Today, the plan was that Natalie would walk to school on her own. She made it as far as that door. Then she said "What do I do if a stranger is on the sidewalk?" My first inclination was to tell her to punch them and run. Then I realized a stranger could be a neighbor walking their dog and that punching them was probably a bad idea. So I walked her two blocks to where she could see the crossing guard. I did catch her looking back at me a couple of times. At first I thought it was sweet that she was not grown up enough to walk on her own. But within minutes I was pushing her out of the nest stating "You are fine to walk by yourself. Nothing will happen and you know what to do if something did." So this is what parenting is, right? Finding the balance between independence and support. Holding back the breaks in your resolve to raise a confident child until you are in front of your blog. Just proves that your children continue to challenge and amaze you even when they can cook their own soup and get all the shampoo out of their own hair. And in the end, they know when they can fly!

“Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them” --  Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Daily Picture Grade 5 - Day 4

One week under our belts. And Gammaw and Pappaw came to visit this week. Good to have breakies with Pappaw before school!

"Breakfast with my buddy!"

Daily Picture Grade 5 - Day 3

Thursday already. Talked to Tom last night, he is in Shanghai, and he has severe tonsillitis! Poor man! But he got to a western doctor and he has been loaded up with antibiotics so he should be back on his feet by Sunday. In fact, he is actually in Beijing and is travelling back to Shanghai Thursday afternoon. Make that past-tense. Being on the other side of the 12-hour time difference is harder I think. Anyway, he is sick in China so he missed the Day Three Panic. The old "was I supposed to do 1-2 and 1-3 or just 1-2?" issue. Only the second day of homework so Natalie is out of practice. So, 10 minutes of hand-wringing resulted in her deciding to do 1-3 so this was our first day of homework in the morning. I guess it is good to get that milestone out of the way early.

"Let the sun shine on me! All year please!"

Daily Picture - Day 1 and Day 2

Unbelievable. How different our lives are, but how much the same. We are in a new house but surrounded by things we accumulated in China (literally surrounded in some rooms). Natalie has a new school, but if feels similar to Concordia. Tom is in Beijing this week, so even that seems the same. But some changes are rippling through our lives. I will be back at work full-time in less than two weeks. Natalie will be walking and riding her bike to school by herself as soon as she tires of being escorted by her mom. Our shoe cabinet only has one pair of fake converse in them now. 

All in all, we are so happy to be back in the U.S. There are moments I awake and wonder where I am, but that happens less and less. I do miss my friends. But then I realize I have friends here too and perhaps now we have the best of both world!

So, we think we will do the daily picture again this year. We will see how that works out with the mornings. These first two days I have captured on my mobile (which takes great pics, so that is ok). Yesterday I caught her from behind following a Woman in fatigues walking her son to school. (lots of Air Force personnel in our community). Today I got her right before she ditched me ("Not all the way to gate Mom!). Life is good.
Day 1

"Let the sun shine"

Day 2

"This is far enough Mom"

Repatriation - Announcing You Are Leaving

One of the harder decisions is to decide when to tell everyone you are leaving. Not too early, but not too late. And I suppose it is the same effort when we came here, except for telling family. Of course, that was a part of the decision and action as well, when to officially tell our family that we were really coming home. Before we could do that, we had to mentally get there ourselves. Tom has loved working here and would have loved to stay. Natalie did not want to talk about repatriating at all. I could go either way.


And telling people you are leaving is not the same as saying goodbye. Every notification comes with a "I'll see you again before I go" response. You know you are putting off the inevitable, but it seems right. The people you need to share your decision ranges from people at school, your ayi, your driver, your favorite bartenders. The waitress at Blue Frog who always gets the drink order wrong. The members of the Filipino bands that you think you will miss, but you won't. Lucy, who made the best clothes at the market. The fake market has it whole set of special people to visit. The shoe store where the girl is best at tracking down your size and color; Jackie, your bag guy, whose sister is still in jail due to getting caught selling fake L.V.; Juli who sold you Tommy Bahama when people still wore Tommy Bahama; Maggie who insists that paying 500RMB for a silk robe is a cheap price; DiDi and her sons who will sell you shoe bags, pashminas, scarves, and the occasional set of silk coasters; and the rest of the characters that have acted as your guides through this surrogate American Mall. Can't forget Susie and Julia. For all the jewelry I never needed. 


For me, the effort to tell people I was leaving was actually hardest of all. Because in reality, I won't be back. Most of the people I've known will disappear. Just like any other time I have changed the course of my life. However, this seems different because I have never had such a large contingent of people acting as my specially curated community. The community I built for coping and getting along in a world away from what I knew. I placed individuals and groups into this community, and though some were swept away along the journey, many have become what I used to think of as family. I look for their smiles or maybe their frowns. Their good English or their terrible Mandarin. Now most of them feel transparent to me. I tell them I am leaving and they look beyond to the next American expat who can fill the void. I am ok with that though. If this wasn't case, could I leave? Maybe not...

Dear Shanghai,
I just found out I am leaving. Don't worry, I plan on coming back. It's not goodbye, I have time yet. Just letting you know this might be the 2nd to last time you see me...
Shelly

Volunteer

Natalie decided that instead of begging for a dog, she would be proactive and work at a dog shelter or rescue organization when we returned to the U.S. We agreed that if she was volunteering time and they asked her to "foster" a dog, we would be open to that. Only good can come out of her learning to volunteer for things she is passionate about. Here is the letter she sent to a shelter in the Dayton area. She hasn't heard from them yet, but this made me smile anyway!

Dear Helpers and Founders at Puppy Pals Rescue,

My name is Natalie Bramer. I am nine years old. I currently live in Shanghai, China, where I have been living for the past five years.

I am emailing you to ask if I can help work and foster at Puppy Pals. I have always loved dogs and now want a chance to help them and spread dogs to loving, happy families. I want to help as many dogs as possible and give them the life they deserve.

A couple of years before I was born, my parents, Tom and Shelly Bramer, owned a teacup poodle that they had bought from a breeder. The poodle was too small to be a show dog, and was given to my parents agreeably. They named her Shelby. My first memory of my short life was her licking my cheek on Christmas morning when I was two. It was only three years after I met Shelby that she passed away while my mom was on a business trip.

I didn't really understand it at the time. I only remember that when I woke up the next morning, Shelby was not there.

When I was four years old I moved to Shanghai, a large, bustling city that was located in Eastern China. I begged for a dog, pleaded, coaxed, and asked and asked and asked for one. My parents said they would think about.

I found a particular breed I liked on my friends dog breed book. I did research on them, and found shelters in a suitable price range, driving distance and correct management. Dogs caught my eye and I asked my parents harder than ever.

This year, my mom suggested that I might prefer working at a animal shelter. At first, I was reluctant, but the more she talked about it, the more I was drawn to that idea.

I set to work looking for a reliable shelter that needed helpers, and after tiring and frustrating work, I found Puppy Pals Rescue. I looked at the dogs and noticed the paragraphs you submitted onto the website about needing Foster Parents. I would gladly accept any chance to care for a dog for periods of time.

Please reply back with your answer at natratb@gmail.com.

Thanks,

Natalie Bramer

Repatriation: From Decision to Buying a House

Our decision to repatriate was not a surprise. Every year since 2006 we have discussed the opportunity to stay or go. Same company or different company. Same circumstances or different circumstances. Natalie firmly said STAY. Tom felt STAY on most days though you could catch him after a hard day at work and he would change to a GO. I could have gone either way. As a family we had agreed that me not working (at a paying job doing something I am actually skilled at) was something that needed to change. I tried starting my own consulting company, but quickly realized that planting the seed of "entrepreneur" in a generally risk-adverse individual required significant care and growing time. Alas, this spring indicated the maturing time for self-employment was going to be longer than required to justify us staying in China. So that eliminated the opportunity to consider any "local" packages. 


I know from talking to other families that this "stay or go" decision will typically be determined by how ingrained into the local lifestyle you have really become. So living in a villa with all the amenities, having an Ayi to help with everything, having an awesome educational experience for your children, all was outweighed by the desire to keep Tom employed. And once you know there is more than a 50% chance of repatriating, the scale shifts quickly to GO. You don't want to be that family that decides to STAY but then finds out two weeks before the end of the school that STAY = TERMINATED. So, we decided to GO. Natalie refused to speak about GO until a month or so before our move date. I built a Plan with all of the things that needed done. Then I made a Shanghai Bucket list with all the things I wanted to do/buy/see before I left. We told family. We told friends. We settled into the idea of returning to a place we knew and people we remembered.


After the Decision was made to GO, you quickly realize you need a place to live. the company would fly us back for a "look-see" trip so we could LOOK at houses and hopefully SEE one we could live in. If we had kept a house, this trip would be easy. But we didn't. So we had a clean whiteboard and decided to focus on finding a school for Natalie. Truth be told, she was the reason for the cohesion in the first place! The opportunity for her to experience life outside of the US, to have an international school experience, for her to spend time with me since I took a break from working, all of those things were a primary driver behind coming. So of course, we had a great responsibility to ensure that all of those benefits were not undone when we returned. So we picked a few school districts in the Dayton area that seemed the right fit. I am sure that every returning child offers a unique set of considerations. For Natalie, it is all about teacher and faculty attention, which partially translates to student to teacher ratios, but not exactly. The other consideration was finding a home which accommodate, at least partially, care after school. I plan on going back to work so we will have to figure out what she is going to do every day after school. And really, that was it. We don't have other demands such as test score achievement or academic success in general, though these two outcomes seem to support the first need in terms of teacher attention. All of this research was easily supported by my Plan as it was simply information in, decisions out. My kind of project.


So once settled on the school options, we started on the house search. Our second criteria for a home, was somewhere that allowed us to have/build a sense of community. Not so easy in Dayton area since it is basically all suburbs. But we used general guidelines such as distance to school, commute time, walkability scores, etc. to fine-tune our house search. This is not easy from thousands of miles away. Thank goodness for the internet! Don't misunderstand me, the internet did NOT lead us directly to the house we bought [or perhaps current tense is better here, so buying], but it did help us with the selection process. What houses are selling for, what do they look like, how long is it taking, does the neighborhood have lots of houses for sale and why. Using the internet we were able to build a short-list of homes that we wanted to look at further. We primarily used Zillow, though we also used local resources such as Trulia or the Dayton Area Board of Realtors. But I personally like the Zillow apps for the Android (kindle fire) and iPad. The only thing missing from all the apps and websites was a way to track houses and a ranking for them. We did that offline in a spreadsheet. When looking at a property on the internet, we would score the potential from 1-5 with 5 being the "Have to See". By the time of our look-see trip to the US, we had about 30 total homes scored from 5 to 3 we could give the Realtor. We had made comments about what was appealing about the property and the potential drawbacks. The Realtor was able to discern our needs (generally) from looking at the list. I think this made the whole process much more efficient and was really the only way we were able to find a house so quickly. Who knew the Plan was going to move along so nicely? I did have to add some detail around the actual arrival back home, such as buying a car, getting Natalie enrolled in school, public library cards, etc. The Plan was shaping up quite nicely!


We flew in on Saturday, looked at houses Sunday and Monday, re-looked at our favorites on Tuesday, and put an offer out on Wednesday. Then back to Shanghai to figure out what we just did! Everyone thinks that finding a house in such a short time is nearly impossible. But it wasn't that bad. I think it has to do with the way American's think of housing. But I won't digress here on that and instead will just summarize by stating that we did not feel the need to buy above or even at our means. We were not looking for a house we loved because we realize that a house is just a place to hang your 127 pictures and art pieces and a mantle for your 7 Buddha heads. As long as there is room for that new dining table and chairs I had made here, we are good! [Tom would require full disclosure on my part so I will state here that one house we really liked had to be eliminated due to the fact that my new table would NOT fit into the dining area. Though I consider this more a flaw of the house rather than my buying habits!]


So, we found the house. It turned out to be the first house we looked at. It was not even really on the market yet and so was never on our list. We didn't love it per se, but it met all our criteria, required little improvement and was "move-in" ready, was in a convenient location, and the price was right. Done. Oh, except that we found out the roof needed to be replaced. But we found out while at the airport waiting to leave. I'll not digress to share the whole story, but will summarize by saying we bought the house BUT will need to replace the roof in the next few years. Then there was the paperwork to buy a house. We had to close from Shanghai. Which meant going to the US Consulate to get some papers notarized. And at $50 a notarization for a total of $300, I realize that instead of going back to the US, I should have become a Notary Public and set up shop here. So we went the US Consulate, signed our mortgage papers, and overnight-ed them back to the Title Agency. The Title Agency then contacted us to let us know that, oops, they had missed one form to be notarized. So, they emailed them and we trekked back to the US Consulate, hoping we could just get the one paper signed and not the whole stack. Which they did. So another $50 and we were done. [We are currently waiting for the actual closing which will be the week of June 11.]  What about the Plan you ask? How did we adapt the schedule? Well, I actually started consider the result if we stopped using the Plan. How could I possibly think that I could identify all the things that had to be done to get three people out of China and back to the US?


By the time we returned from our home visit, the impact of our decision to repatriate had settled into my consciousness. It had really just hovered around my subconscious before, appearing only when discussing houses with Tom or talking to Natalie about public schools. The reality was frankly, a bit overwhelming. As ready as you might think you are to accept a major life change, it can gnaw at you while you are sleeping and impact your decision making ability for simple things, like where to eat dinner. You get caught up thinking things like "We should go try new places before we leave" or "This might be the last time we eat here." Then there were relatively simple activities I needed to do like find the Ayi a new family. But that has turned out to be one of the most complicated. And it's still not finished. Seeing that activity on my list every day and not seeing how I was ever going to successfully complete it left me dismayed. And so, I abandoned the Plan that I had determined would be my own personal salvation. I hadn't been able to keep it up to date anyway, instead of doing what I though I should be doing, I was busy doing things I had to do like deciding if replacing the house on the roof was important enough issue to abandon the house and buy another one. And trying to find replacements for Skipper and Gilligan (our two Terracotta Warriors) as they had deteriorated to the point of not being able to be packed and shipped. I guess my point is that there was not a whole lot of value in feeling good about checking activities off the plan. It just made me feel like there was a whole lot of other things I wasn't doing or even knew I should do. 


Which brings me to the conclusion that learning to adapt is the most useful skill we teach our children.  That concept brings some things full circle for me personally. A big part of the decision to come here was to give myself a break from the work stress that was resulting from the premise of my career being the most important thing in my life. It wasn't, it isn't. So I sat that career aside for a while, then I tried it again, and set is aside one more. And now I am prepared to try it yet again. Along the way I have had to adapt my own personal definition about what a career is and what role it plays next to Mother, Wife, Daughter, Sister, and Friend. I am not sure I have completely figured that out yet. However, recognizing it needs to adapt is a step in the right direction. We have a home in a community and we have friends and family awaiting our arrival. The home stage is set and we begin the new life in 11 days. 

Repatriation: The Plan

I have decided I should be blogging to help keep my sanity during our repatriation from China back to the U.S. Consider it a comedic look at the CLASH of two very different cultures. If it works, and I keep my sanity, well, that is a bonus!

Everyone says that sometimes the repatriation is harder than expatriation. In our case, I will have to agree. Selling a home was easier than buying a home. Giving up work was easier than going back. Moving to Shanghai with a 4 year old was/is easier than moving to the US with an almost 10 year old.  But I am getting ahead of myself. The repatriation all started with a plan...

Repatriation is process just like anything else. You can manage it like a project, just like implementing a new system or building a house. You can, but you won't. (oops, that might have been a spoiler!). All families who repatriate share a common experience:

1. Decision: The company decides that they can longer "afford" expatriate services OR the trailing spouse finally puts their foot down and announces "Enough is enough. I want to go back!". Or in our case, Tom's favorite hole-in-the-wall bar closed.
2. Prepare living arrangements in home country: If you kept your house, then you give notice to any "renter" that you will be returning. If you don't have a home, you will get 24 hours in your return location to find and buy a place to deliver all of the junk you will be bringing back with you (see #8 below).
3. Announce to everyone you leaving. This includes schools, friends, ayis, drivers, landlords. don't forget hairdressers, favorite fake market vendors, the Filipino bands you have somehow come to adore, the local Jewelry vendor who makes you jewelry you will never wear but need to buy.
4. Pack: You cannot believe the stuff you bought 5 years ago. And you will have insight into the HOARDER you have become. Oh, and thanks for leaving a few very hidden white elephant gifts on that bookcase!
5. Exit to home Country: Probably it would be best if you just keep circling the earth time travelling until you reach the point where your adaptation had not yet reached the "edit undo" point or the plane's toilets fill up (which will happen before you reach that former condition!)
6. Arrive in home country: Haul your 27 bags per person through customs indicating you are repatriating from a third-world country which explains why you have 12 unused deodorant bottles, 35 Pashminas, enough green tea to get your through finding a new source, Christmas bracelets for friends for the next 6 years, and two Chinese Fu Dogs you bought after packing but couldn't live without. No, you are not importing spices, that box of douchin(豆豉) was for the airplane meals.
7. Culture Shock: This continues until you begin to question what nationality you really are. You end up with the cable you said you would not get, driving to the Starbucks two blocks away, and eating Taco Bell again. Your guilt from these transgressions eats away at your resolve to be that better person you thought you could be.
8. Unpacking: This step also continues until you begin to question your sanity in accumulating ALL THIS STUFF.
9. Settling In to Americana: This is the one step where you are now in control of your destiny and can define your own story. An opportunity to use all the bad experiences to form a new, smaller footprint, less materialist, community-oriented family.

I originally had a plan to deal with each one of these steps. I used a few tools, but settled into a combination of Excel and Evernote. I had about 130 activities in Excel, most with dates. I documented the names of all the contacts for relocation, I started researching houses on Zillow in the city we were moving back to, and then we got to step #2. And I threw away the plan. Well, actually, I did refer to it a couple of times subsequent to the 4 weeks of jet lag that the resulted from our house hunting trip. Generally speaking, I abandoned it. Not out of desire to approach something this important willy-nilly, but because trying to manage such a personally impacting event proved too difficult for me. When a task needed to be handles with precision and authority, I found myself instead agreeing to go to lunch with friends or visiting a place I had not yet seen. An email that needed to be sent to clarify a move-related question was sent late or not at all due to my desire to maximize time doing activities that I would not be able to do when in the US, such as elbowing my way to the food scales at Carrefour. I have no rational explanation for this poor Project Management behavior. Though perhaps it was a way of managing the risk associated with the mental stress that accompanies a repatriation. Yes, that sounds intelligent and unavoidable, so let's call it that: Repatriation-traumatic stress disorder (RTSD). So clearly I was simply participating in alternative activities to help reduce the potential impact of RTSD.

My point in relaying this "throwing out the plan" phenomena is to emphasize that repatriation makes individuals abandon their normal behaviors. Not just abandon, as normal behaviors become almost poisonous when trying to cope with the idea of leaving a place you learned to be a part of. This is different than when we came, because we had always been American and we never attempted to be anything else (except maybe French while visiting St. Martin for 5 days). And we knew we would return to live there someday, so there was no need to grieve or feel regrets for the America we left behind. Anyone who reads about Third Culture Kids know that kids will create their own third culture from the recipe of combining their home and host cultures. Adults are disadvantaged in that this recipe does not result in a third culture at all. I feel like it I do when I have tried to make bread: too much flour or too much water, doesn't rise enough, or too much. For me at least, the two cultures are too incompatible to make something confortable to live in. So instead, we mentally prepare for living back in the US by abandoning most of the culture here in China. the peculiar challenge is to find the parts of myself and the rest of the family that have truly been changed and then find a way of accommodating that in the US. Off the top of my head I know that includes Community, my personal walkability score, and rice cakes.  Reinvention of sorts. I am holding on to that thought for now as it is my cup-half-full view.

So where are we in the process? We are at the packing step. But more on that AFTER I locate the elusive head to the new TerraCotta Warrior that these guys are building a custom crate for...

Daily Picture Grade 4 - Day 172

Last day of school. Last day of school at Concordia. Last day of school in Shanghai. Thought today's picture should be one that is unique to attending an international school in China. Our bus has a driver and two "ayi's" or helpers. I have ridden the bus back and forth to school and will tell you that these two Ayi's put up with a lot of crap from the kids. In the U.S. the bus driver would simply not let the misbehaved kids ride. Anyway, these two ladies have been riding the bus to and from school with Natalie for the last 5 years. Every year we give them a "Red Envelope" or Hongbao (红包). This year we also got a picture. Thanks to Ms Bao and Ms Wang! (Not sure of driver's name). Natalie had a very sad day, it was very hard to say goodbye to friends and teachers at school. She will knows she will make new ones, but it is still sad to see this big part of her life going away.

"Thanks bus Ayis and Driver! Goodbye Concordia!"

Daily Picture Grade 4 - Day 171

Today is the 2nd to last day of 4th Grade! LAST DAY FOR A UNIFORM! Sad for me. And Natalie a bit disappointed about it too. She is not much of "fashion diva" (her words) so wearing the same clothes every day was an easy routine. But today she tried to wear the same thing she wore the first day of Kindergarten (though I think she wore a skort the first day). 

"Last UNIFORM Day!"

Daily Picture Grade 4 - Day 170

Whew, back on track with the publish time and date. Two more after today.  And I took a great picture of her in front of the green bamboo and flowers. But this was one we took so she could see the spaghetti on her face! Yes, she had spaghetti for breakfast. Pretty sure she warmed it up. But this was so much more Natalie than the posed one. Today Tom and I are headed to the last ES Chapel where the kids who are leaving are recognized and given a cross and a special prayer.

"There is NOT spaghetti on my face! Oh wait, I see it..."

Daily Picture Grade 4 - Day 169

I rode in the van with her to the bus stop so thought I would get one from inside. Hard to see, but there is pop tart in her hair. Breakfast these last weeks of school are not so great!

"POP TART HEAD"

Daily Picture Grade 4 - Day 168

Back from Beijing, but slept through her leaving so another no picture day. Our return flight from Beijing did not land until after midnight, the Middle Ring road was shutdown so our taxi driver selected an alternative route which required him to drive 95 MPH. Scott, Alyssa, and I were exhausted by the time we got home at 1:45 am. Hence the sleeping through. I found a picture where I think Natalie felt the same way I did that night/morning. This is how/where we found her at the end of her 4th Birthday Party. The funny thing was that this was just a family birthday and there was not a big party. Ah, to sleep like that in the hallway!

"Sleeping Beauty"

Daily Picture Grade 4 - Day 167

This is from her 2nd Beijing trip (did she only go twice?) was when we flew there before flying to North Korea. She lost her first front tooth while eating at Hooter's. Good thing the Tooth Fairy had GPS...

"My first front tooth!"

Daily Picture Grade 4 - Day 166

I know what you are thinking. I have forgotten the Daily picture for a week. And you would be wrong! Not forgotten, just busy and not here and no time to load the one picture I do have. Never fear, I have some fun pictures to make up for the gap. Scott and Alyssa Stinson were visiting last week, so we headed to Beijing early Tuesday morning. Natalie stayed with Aerin so wasn't here in the morning. Plus we were gone until Wednesday very late and not up before she went to school Thursday. And since Tom is not a big fan of my Daily Picture project (sigh, another post perhaps?), I decided not to request special assistance and instead will use the retro method I've used previously. Since were were in Beijing I decided to use a couple of pictures from Natalie's previous visits to Beijing. Here is the first, from 2008 when we went with the Bramer's. I could have picked a fun one from The Forbidden City or one after we climbed the hard section of the Great Wall, but to be honest, this is one of my favorites. She seems so young to me. She was just 6. And travelling through China during the October National Holiday was taking it's toll on her. Lots of pictures to be taken by Chinese tourists who had never seen a blue-eyed child before.

"I is tired."

Daily Picture Grade 4 - Day 165

Only 7 1/2 days of school left. Mondays are not always fun, today no exception. She left conditioner in her hair after her bath lat night so this morning had to jump in shower to rewash which left her with wet hair and a wet shirt for school. Oh well, just a few more mornings!

"Jump!"

Daily Picture Grade 4 - Day 164

Natalie has been singing since yesterday's performance practice and it cracks me up! Some of the kids that were in the play have volunteered to sing at our School director's retirement party in a couple of weeks. Yesterday they practiced the three songs and Natalie kept practicing at home. Funny how hearing a child sing can make you either cry or smile! I took a couple of poses, but this one seemed more "Nat" since she was mimicking funny hand gestures for the song!

"Do the Monkey..."

Daily Picture Grade 4 - Day 163

Thursday. 9 1/2 days of school left. One month until we leave China. Doing a picture each day should be helping me "get closure" on our time here, but it does not seem to be helping. Spending time with friends helps. Making plans for when we return to the US helps. Clearing out a room of all the junk we have accumulated over 5 1/2 years helps. But in the end, there is still the notion that you are walking away from a big part of your life. When we came here it was different as we walked towards something new and unknown. It was an adventure. The repatriation is more of a return to what we had so you have to reconcile that with who you have become. I know there are those of you out there who know exactly what I mean. Thank goodness or it would be difficult to keep on a forward path! 


Well, no time for melancholy today! At least not until later. We are christening my new dining table and chairs with a "clean out the pantry" Girls Night at my house. I have three kinds of beans soaking, 4 oz of teeny pasta, 3 cans of sweet potato puree, 7/8 bottle of wheat germ, two jars of pumpkin baby food, 3 cups of oatmeal, 4 kinds of crackers we didn't like, 5 kinds of Chinese hot pot spice packages, a can of crab meat, and that was just the first two shelves! Lots of new recipes to be created today!

"Sweet Potato Oatmeal on Crackers sounds like we are ordering Sherpa's, right?"

Daily Picture Grade 4 - Day 162

End of year results in not so thought out pictures. Only 10 more left...

"Designer Toes"

Daily Picture Grade 4 - Day 161

Up since 2:40 today. (What is up with that? Too many things bouncing in my head!) So no clever chit chat with Natalie this morning. Hence just a picture of her finishing her math homework.

"I love Geometry"

Daily Picture Grade 4 - Day 160

Today she wanted to show us a card trick. Worst trick ever. Cards were right side up when she had me pick, cards were all in numeric order when I placed my card on top, she shuffled when she could see the faces on the cards, and then she didn't get my card right. I think she needs to watch that Youtube video again. Not magic at all.

"Here, let me show you a magic card trick"

Daily Picture Grade 4 - Day 159

Yes, all of the Daily Blogs were backed up. No internet for about 36 hours. Yuck. Back on now. And it's Friday!!1 So off to breakfast. There is a special guest for this morning, though not sure who will be here to meet them. More later...

"Stop or I'll shoot! with my bamboo pole"

Daily Picture Grade 4 - Day 158

She is still at it. Still practicing after school and in the morning. Waiting for the first spill that might indicate the end of the risky sport, but so far, so good!

"Swoosh"